Embracing Fate: A Captive Hearts Novel

by Masters, Ellie

  Courage fled me, but when his rough fingers dug between my legs, I found my voice. With the scream of a banshee, a blood-curdling shriek ripped past my vocal chords.

  I twisted on the floor and kicked out with my feet. Desperately, I shoved and kicked against the bulk of masculine power I had no hope of overcoming, but they wouldn’t take this from me without a fight.

  “Shit man, you gonna just stand there?” Needle Man said with a grunt. “Come hold her down.”

  “You saying you need help?” John busted out a laugh.

  I jerked my head side to side, bucked my hips, and tried in vain to kick him off my body. But he was too big. Too overwhelming. Too firmly in charge of what would happen next.

  “You think it’s going to be easy fucking her in the ass with her moving like this? You’ll want my help.”

  John gave a huff and kicked off the door. While I screeched and fought for my life, he slowly stepped around to my head, lowered to his knees, and captured my wrists in his hands. Bracing my arms over my head, he immobilized my upper body with no effort at all.

  That didn’t stop me from fighting. While Needle Man focused on shoving his pants down, I kneed him in the groin.

  “You stupid ass, bitch.” He swung and slapped me across the cheek.

  Pain exploded in my cheek and lights danced in my vision. The entire room swum around me. My ears rang, and the taint of blood coated my tongue. Some of it trickled down the back of my throat, making me gag and cough.

  “Hey man, you may not want to put new marks on the girl. He may take offense to that.”

  He would take offense to a bruise on my cheek but not the damage they would do to my most intimate parts?

  “Stop!” I cried out, but they didn’t stop.

  Needle Man shoved the fabric of the ruined dress up around my legs. Cool air blew across my sex. Fully exposed to both men, something died inside of me.

  He wedged his lower body between my legs, forcing them apart. The rigid length of his unsheathed erection bumped against my inner thigh as he struggled to line himself up. I could survive rape, but what about the diseases rape could bring?

  He was so strong. Stronger than I thought possible, crowding my body while his buddy pinned my wrists overhead. His hips pressed against mine, and his chest crushed my upper body as he leaned on me.

  The foulness spilling out of his mouth made me want to gag and the drag of his whiskers scratched my skin. His buddy, John, leaned back, perhaps placing distance between himself and my soon to be rutting rapist.

  Another blood-curdling scream tore from my throat. I think it hurt John’s ears because he tightened his grip on my wrists. My poor pinky finger throbbed, a tiny hurt which filled my world. I focused on that pain, unwilling to acknowledge what was soon to come.

  Painful and hoarse, another scream filled the air when his fingers dug at my delicate flesh. The bastard seemed to be having difficulty finding the hole. The hard jab of his erection pushed against skin, but did not penetrate. I continued to fight, but my frenzied movements wouldn’t save me.

  “Cunt’s dry as the fucking Sahara.” He spit on his fingers and dug between my legs again. His dick kept digging into my thigh, first on the left, then on the right, trailing a line of precum as it went. Each time, he failed to penetrate my most private place.

  “You’re hurting me.” I managed to find my voice, and while I couldn’t fight them, at least it allowed some outlet for the pain, the degradation, and all that fear bottled up inside. I let it fill the room, screaming at the top of my lungs while I bucked beneath my assailant.

  “Shut up, cunt.” Needle Man’s fingers found the folds of my sex and he smeared the wetness of his spit over them, lubricating his passage.

  I screamed again, but it fizzled into an agonized whimper as he lifted his hips and set up to thrust.

  A loud banging cut through my frightened sobs. Then it seemed as if the entire room exploded in violent fury. Everything happened so fast. I had no time to process what was going on.

  One moment, Needle Man was lining up to force himself inside of me, then he levitated through the air, picked up by an incredible force.

  All that pressure on my hips, my stomach, my ribs, and my wrists disappeared between one breath and the next. I gasped into that space, filling my heaving lungs with breath after breath.

  John released my wrists. I curled away, tucking into a tight ball as John leapt to his feet.

  The eyes of an avenging angel chilled my blood, piercing blue and dark with fury. The man held Needle Man by the throat against the wall. Death swam in his gaze as he slammed my assailant repeatedly against the wall.

  Scratch that. That was no avenging angel. I’d been saved by a monster. Power bunched in my avenging angel’s body. His arm drew back. His fingers curled into a fist. Then in the blink of an eye, he released devastation.

  His fist pummeled my assailant’s face, turning it bloody as bones crunched and caved inward with sickening sounds.

  Over and over, the man rained fury down on my assailant. Needle Man’s body thunked against the wall. His heels kicked against the baseboards. He grabbed at his throat, trying to loosen the man’s grip.

  A gurgling scream slid out between Needle Man’s lips, then his entire body went limp. But my savior didn’t stop. He kept hitting until the smacking noise made my stomach clench. I heaved, barely leaning to the side to avoid vomiting all over myself.

  Needle Man’s friend backed up against the far wall. His wide, terrified eyes, sought the exit. A dark stain spread over the front of his pants as he urinated on himself.

  “You’re a dead man.” My avenging monster spoke with the assurance he would enact the worst destruction. He leaned down, yanked me by the arm and deposited me on the side of the room. All the while, he blocked John from escaping through the shattered remnants of what had once been a door.

  When had he busted down the door?

  “I didn’t do shit to the girl.” John lifted his hands up. “I wasn’t gonna…”

  “I saw what you did, and I know what you were going to do.”

  Needle Man didn’t move, but then he couldn’t. His dead eyes stared at me across the room. His face was a tattered mess, bloodied and torn. A flap of flesh hung from his cheek and his nose simply wasn’t there anymore.

  Blood covered my avenging angel’s knuckles and his gaze swept to me, scanning me from head to toe. When he saw the state of my dress, his eyes narrowed in on the triangle between my legs.

  “Did he rape you?” The question demanded an answer.

  I pressed back against the wall, hugged my knees to my chest, but when I realized that only exposed everything to his eye, I gathered the torn remnants to cover myself as best I could. I shifted, pressing my knees together while holding the remains of my dress where they covered my nakedness.

  Not certain if I was being saved, or worse, I stared at him and shook head to toe.

  “Answer me.” Power thrummed in his voice with an undeniable command which forced me to obey.

  My head moved, shaking side to side, with the answer I couldn’t voice.

  He turned the ferocity of his gaze to John, a large man in his own right, who trembled as he pressed his back to the wall. Terror shone in his eyes and incomprehensible sounds issued from his mouth.

  “Do not move.” The man pointed at me, or rather the spot on the ground where I huddled.

  I gulped and gave a short nod. There was no way in hell I would challenge this man.

  He turned to John, reached out, and extended his fingers. Curling them up, he gestured John forward. “If you get past me, you’ll live.”

  John’s eyes nearly bugged out of his head. His gaze darted to the door, dipped down to the body of my would-be rapist, and then his entire demeanor changed.

  “I didn’t do shit to the girl.”

  “You were holding her down while he raped her.”

  My head shook, negating that statement, and a tiny voice lifted from m
y lips. “He didn’t rape me.” I glanced at the dead man. “You got here just in time.”

  A swarm of emotions flew around me. Like angry bees they buzzed with a thousand voices. Relief. Joy. Anger. Revulsion. Loathing. Shame. Confusion. Anxiety. Hurt.

  I tried swatting them away, but then came the sting of vulnerability, isolation, and shock. The sharp burn hit me, stabbing through my skin and pricking at my heart where it ripped and shredded me from the inside out. That pain built behind my eyes where hot tears gathered and threatened to spill.

  I didn’t have the energy to stop them, and a cascade of overwhelming terror spilled down my cheeks.

  My savior’s jaw bunched as he looked at the remaining man. “Changed my mind. You’re not getting out of here alive.”

  His entire focus shifted to John, leaving me a forgotten remnant huddled on the floor.

  Muscles beneath a tailored suit bunched, coiling for a strike I didn’t see coming. The man moved like lightning, his reflexes sharp. His strikes quick, sure and true. Totally devastating. I’d never seen anything like it and found something new to fear.

  I watched him kill a second man. It’s something I should never have seen, but I watched.

  It’s something I should never have enjoyed, but I cheered my avenging angel, not once concerned by the fact he was a monster. But I knew.

  I knew, without a doubt, that this man was the one who spent a million dollars to steal my freedom.

  Chapter 14

  The men would die. I already sent one to the grave. For what he did, he would burn in hell. I just wish I’d taken more time sending him there. Bastard deserved much worse than a simple pounding.

  They touched Clara.

  Hurt Clara.

  Raped Clara.

  My Clara.

  They defiled something precious and for that they deserved to die.

  Two men on one woman? She had no chance. The poor thing huddled on the floor.

  In shock.

  And what I was about to do wouldn’t help that one bit.

  What would have happened if I hadn’t changed my damn mind? I wasn’t supposed to be here. That’s probably why they did it. The bastards saw an opportunity and took it.

  They probably thought I was some rich, weaselly asshole who would have sucked it up and said nothing. Well, they knew the truth now. Fury filled me with righteous and indignant anger. And I didn’t think twice about letting it out.

  They were supposed to deliver her to me the next day, but I had to see the beautiful girl I would destroy.

  By the time I concluded my business upstairs, everyone else had left. There was no one wandering the halls. No one to hear her terrified screams filling the hallway. No one to defend my precious Clara.

  But she had me.

  I heard her cries. The beast within me roared and one kick took down the door. A man died beneath my fists in a blind rage and another would join him. But I had control now. I would savor this death.

  So much for my plan to build the suspense in her mind about who bought her at the auction. So much for starting the slow conditioning which would tie her to me. I hadn’t been able to resist seeing her up close, and I’m damn thankful I gave in to that urge.

  Breath sawed in and out of my lungs as my knuckles throbbed. Blood coated my fists and a spray of blood saturated my shirt. I think some of that asshole’s blood was on my face as well. I wiped at my jaw and smeared blood over my skin.

  I rolled my shoulders, loosening the tension in my muscles and turned my attention to a walking corpse.

  “You touched what does not belong to you.” My ominous tone reached across the space, slammed into him, and made his entire body ripple with fear.

  Less than a week out of prison and I was already adding names to the long list of dead men I sent scurrying into the pits of hell.

  He held up his hands. “I didn’t touch her.”

  Bold of him to lie. And a mistake. There would be no redemption for him now.

  For a split second, I considered making a living example out of him. I got over that real quick. I gave a slow shake of my head. Liars were the worst. Men who had no pride to own up to the truth didn’t deserve mercy.

  “She is mine, and I don’t like other people touching what belongs to me.”

  Clara whimpered. A mewling, pathetic sound, I almost turned to comfort her, but I stamped down that thought pretty quick. This wasn’t the time. Not when there was business to finish between me and this asshole.

  He wasn’t going to go down easily. Not that I expected him to. He stood an inch or two taller than me and had more muscle. Not that it mattered.

  I’d fought bigger men than him.

  They had gone to the grave with urine staining their pants too. A chuckle escaped me with that image running through my head. I couldn’t believe he pissed himself, but then he probably had never seen someone rip another man’s face off.

  Clara was safe for the moment. I took a second to make sure. That tiny distraction cost me.

  My teeth cracked as the asshole’s fist connected with my face. Pain exploded behind my eyes and fire heated my skin. Stinging nettles of pain burrowed along my nerves as my face took the first hit.

  That pain was familiar. It throbbed with distress. Most people shied away from pain, but I embraced it. Pain proved you were alive. And I absorbed the mother-fucker’s hit. I sucked it inside of me where I used it, allowing it to stoke my anger to a full-on rage.

  I hadn’t taken the time to make the asshole on the ground suffer. Too enraged to think straight, I unleashed the monster within me and didn’t stop until well after the man died. There would be plenty of time to deal with this dick.

  Blood trickled down my cheek. The bastard split my skin. I spit on the tiled floor and waited for my vision to clear as I danced out of range of my opponent’s fists. If he’d been smart, he would’ve taken the opportunity to run away, but I guess he felt the need to avenge his buddy. Fucking prick.

  The guy lunged forward, swinging wildly with no finesse. He’d probably been trained to fight on the streets. One thug teaching the next generation how to die. The man was nothing like me.

  The throbbing in my ears dissipated, and in that silence, I heard two things. The deep, huffing breaths of my opponent and the soft cries of sweet Clara.

  My skin itched. My muscles flexed. My tendons coiled tight, ready to explode, but I held my punch. I would let him come at me. Then we would finish this. Nice and slow.

  His fist snapped forward and I dodged to the side while I grabbed his wrist. I used his momentum to pull him off his feet. He spun in the air and landed on his back with a solid thunk against the tiles. With the breath knocked out of him, I straddled him, sitting on top of him, and went to town pounding him into the ground.

  But I didn’t kill him. Not yet. He needed to suffer for what he’d done. I couldn’t get the image out of my head.

  Clara on the ground.

  This man’s hands around her delicate wrists, holding her down while the other one forced her legs apart and tried to fuck what belonged to me.

  I shook my head as rage filled my entire being. The man below me huffed with pain. He couldn’t catch his breath and I wasn’t about to oblige him by letting up. My heart pulsed to the beat of my fists as I slammed into his solar plexus. Drove my fist into his spleen. Cracked one rib, and then two others. He blocked his face, using his arms to keep me from destroying anything that could be used to identify his body.

  His blood sprayed all over my crisp white shirt. The tux was beyond ruined. With one well-timed hit to his side, another rib caved beneath my fists.

  He lowered his guard as he sucked wind. I set upon him. Knuckles burning as I broke his nose. Destroyed his eyes. And bludgeoned his ears. His lips split, cut open by his teeth as I knocked them out. Then, when I thought he had enough, I chopped down sharply against his larynx.

  His body jerked as the cartilage broke beneath the killing blow. He wasn’t dead yet. It would t
ake several minutes for him to suffocate. I wanted that. I needed him to suffer for what he’d done to my sweet Clara.

  No man was to touch her. No man but me.

  I left the dying man and took a step toward the fragile woman huddled on the floor. Her defiant stare from the auction block no longer graced the exquisiteness of her face. In its place, terror and revulsion rippled through her terrified expression. In her vacant stare, I saw her body shutting down with the shock of her trauma. I needed to get her out of here, away from this place, and away from what she’d seen me do.

  Shit, this was not how I envisioned our first meeting. Caring and kind, yet commanding, that was to have been the tone of our first interaction. Instead, she saw me at my worst. This wasn’t something we would recover from. At least, not without a lot of work.

  Shit!

  Without thinking too much about it, I scooped her into my arms. The limpness of her body made holding her difficult, more like a sack of potatoes than a woman, but I adjusted.

  Her head rolled, and with a little bump, I was able to get her chin to rest on my chest. Holding her tight, I marched into the hallway and headed out of the building, daring anyone to bar my way.

  From the tattered remnants of her dress, to the bloodied mess of my suit, they would connect the dots. I didn’t know who those men were who attacked her, but I would be having words with their boss.

  I would have his head, but first I needed to get Clara someplace safe.

  Men who paid for the privilege of owning slaves did not want them broken. This was not going to end well. Word would spread. I would make sure of it, and within a month, this entire operation would be dead.

  Kate and her crew might want me to infiltrate the organization from the inside out, but why work my way up when I could destroy the whole thing? I hadn’t planned on this, but it helped with the overall plan of this insane operation.

  What those men did to Clara turned my stomach. Did they rape the others as well? Or had they only taken advantage of the foolish opportunity I gave them?